Our Universe (eBook)

Our Universe

A Journey into Mystery

Fig. I-1

Bubble Nebula WR 31a

Credit: NASA, ESA Heritage Team

Introduction

Our Universe will be a journey of exploration. Too often it is presented as a recitation of facts and figures with no connection to our lives on Earth. Knowing the mass of Jupiter or what happens when black holes collide will not help the reader discover a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. This book is different.

Most books on the Universe disappoint me. They are full of unrelated data and images and placed in a blender. The resulting concoction is thrown against a wall and we, the readers, are supposed to make sense of the disorder. No attempt is made to connect the story to our lives. Our questions are left unanswered and we are unsatisfied.

If you want a conventional Science on Parade book with no attempt to construct a meaningful, personal story of the Universe, this is not it. You picked this book because you want more. You want to know how this story and its powerful images are linked to you and your life here on Earth. At the end of Our Universe, hopefully, you will know at least three things: who you are, the nature of your home and the purpose of your life. It’s a tall order.

The Universe is always our ultimate teacher. At times, the lessons are direct and to the point. Jump off a cliff and the results are the same for a king or a pauper. The teachings are subtler at times. How a distant supernova detonating billions of years ago, impacts our lives makes a fascinating tale.

Voyages of exploration are full of adventure and the unknown. There are challenges which baffle the mind and no trip into uncharted territory is without danger and a sense of fear. Our palms should be sweaty and knees weak. Girded with curiosity and strength, we are prepared. The story awaits us.

Listen to the soft voice of the Universe and follow the trail she has blazed in the sky. These flickering lights lead us into her very heart. It is a place that answers our most profound questions.

Following the path takes courage and a willingness to evolve into creatures conscious of the wonders of the Universe. The reward is worth the effort. You will be changed.

If you are intrigued, Our Universe may be the book you always sought to read. It is the book I always wanted to write.

The Author

Our Universe was written to tell her story. These pages reveal a lifetime of study and wonder about the nature of the place we call home. It is my privilege to present her tale in a way accessible to any interested layman.

I am not a professional scientist but a retired physician/surgeon, who has a lifelong passion for science and the Universe. Like most readers, I am an amateur, one who loves their subject and studies for the joy and fulfillment it brings.

My interest in science began at around age 10 or 11. Growing up in the 50s, science was making great strides in medicine, nuclear power, jet travel and almost all fields of inquiry. These were heady times. Science held out a bright if unrealistic future for mankind. The prospect of a life free of poverty, disease and ignorance was too much to disregard. I was intoxicated. Science seemed to say, if I knew enough, the questions swirling in my head would magically be answered. I was naïve.

One of my first science books was The Golden Book of the Solar System or something similar. It was full of drawings and fuzzy photographs of planets, moons and asteroids. Each picture was accompanied by narratives of the mysteries to be found beneath the fuzz.

Venus was shrouded in clouds. Surely hidden below the opaque barrier was a tropical climate teeming with all manner of dripping flora and fauna. Mars had canals connecting futuristic cities and was the home planet of an advanced civilization. It was filled with aliens whose eyes were set on conquest of Earth.

My child-like imagination was stoked with all the possibilities. There were few facts to get in the way. Everyone must start somewhere and the Golden Book was my beginning. It was short on knowledge but long on imagination, just what I needed at such a young age.

As I grew up, an uncomfortable realization crept into my worldview. Science is limited. There were warnings I hadn’t picked up. Such as the use of science for the destruction of life and Earth, or the rose-colored glasses through which progress was seen. Science needed boundaries or limits to keep from plunging into its destructive shadows. I had no answers. What I needed was beyond the borders of science.

Anything limited has boundaries. For science, it is where measurement and experimentation end. Strangely, science loses interest past this arbitrary point. It then arrogantly implies inquiry beyond this self-imposed limit is a useless endeavor. I would suggest past these restrictions are where things get interesting.

The first concrete realization of the limits of science was during my residency training. I was instructed to turn off the respirator on a hopelessly deformed, deathly ill newborn child. The life of this small baby was beyond anything we could handle. Science was mute. My scientific training had nothing to say. I was over my head.

Perhaps it was this encounter with the finality of death that made me look past what little I knew about the limits of medicine and science. With that one tragic event, an entire world opened for me. This aspect of experience, past the boundaries of rational thought, I came to call the Mystery. I had no other name for it. It is a realm beyond the capabilities of science and not a puzzle to be solved with enough effort and information.

As the years passed, these ill-defined boundaries and the Mystery beyond became more noticeable, appearing everywhere. I found my curiosity more piqued by the terrain past the border than what went before. It is a place where science is silent and has nothing to offer.

Science is a powerful way of looking at reality, part of the whole but not the entire picture. I found truth in the old saying, “There is more to the Universe than meets the eye.”

After my residency, I owed the Navy two years and they sent our family to the island of Guam. There wasn’t much medicine to practice and my free time was occupied by scuba diving and helping raise our two daughters. Our youngest daughter is a Guamanian, one of the few with red hair. After my two-year stint, I was ready to work and joined a multispecialty group medical practice in Virginia. Almost thirty years later I retired from the same clinic.

A career in medicine is an excellent way for the Universe to teach her lessons. The first lesson was, I wasn’t in charge. No matter how hard I tried or how well I performed, often things didn’t go according to my plan.

The second lesson was, all my patients were going to die one day, as was their physician. We don’t cure anyone. The best we can do is delay the inevitable and try and improve the quality of a person’s life.

The third lesson came while I was working in a free clinic. Even when the consequences of a patient’s actions were spelled out, they would almost always choose to ignore my wisdom on how best to live their lives. The message was, the medical profession doesn’t create health. Health is more a state of mind than the absence of disease.

During the early years of my practice, I met an Episcopal priest who was also a Buddhist. He became my spiritual director for over twenty years. To this day I am not sure I understood five percent of what he said. I kept going back and he kept listening to my babbling. Through this relationship, I learned to keep silence. One of the most enduring lessons of my life.

The Universe doesn’t tend to shout its truth. Sometimes you must be silent and listen. I continue listening to this day and it has been one of the Universe’s treasures.

Now I am retired and live in North Georgia with my wife of almost 50 years. The story of Our Universe and its teachings are important to me. I hope to spend the rest of my time bringing this story into public awareness. Her lessons are profound and life-changing.

The Story

The Universe may be 13.8 billion years old but the story of its evolution and its implications are less than 25 years old. All these tools: the computer, Internet, the great Earth and space telescopes and other instruments are brand new. Astounding wonders have been revealed, as the Universe has opened herself to our searching eyes. Virtually everything is available, in the comfort of our homes, with a computer and the Internet.

Starting off, I was probably like the reader. There were images in magazines and the Internet along with a never-ending stream of articles about the various wonders of the Universe. While fascinating, it wasn’t a coherent whole. The information presented a disjointed story with no connection to our daily lives. The previous story was full of colorful pictures, vast distances and astounding powers. There was no thought of the Universe having the capacity to teach us lessons about the meaning of our existence.

After a lifetime of study, I was lost, with a head full of disconnected information. I couldn’t tell what, if anything, all this meant. Was there any purpose to the Universe or my life? Where did I belong? What did the Universe have to say about who I am?